György Ligeti

Lux aeterna

György Ligeti's "Lux aeterna" from 1966 is a milestone in contemporary choral music. The work for sixteen-part mixed choir a cappella sets the Latin text of the Communio from the Mass for the Dead. The piece achieved worldwide fame through its use in Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey", among other things. Here, Ligeti uses his characteristic technique of micropolyphony, in which the individual voices overlap at extremely close intervals, creating a flowing, almost static sound continuum. The result is shimmering soundscapes in which the boundaries between the notes become blurred and an otherworldly, timeless atmosphere is created that transports the listener into a deep musical meditation.